Comment by MrMorden
2 hours ago
They said millionaires would flee when Massachusetts implemented an income tax surcharge. The amount collected from that tax was in fact more than expected.
If the wealthy in California were willing to give up quality of life to save an amount that's not very meaningful to them, they'd have already moved to Texas. Or North Dakota. Or even Washington, which is an actual small-government state without a personal income tax.
People really want to push wealth taxes to the point of confusing income and wealth taxes, and assuming the willingness to accept an income tax surcharge equates to a willingness to accept a wealth tax, when we have lots of data showing that whenever you tax capital that is mobile (e.g., not real estate) then you get less taxes than you expected as well as capital flight.
It's annoying to list your income, but people do it because the disclosure is limited to one year, and more importantly they can control their income, particularly whatever income is earned in a given state. Only realized income is taxed. But a wealth tax involves questions of valuation - of taxing unrealized gains -- that are in many ways arbitrary and subject to abuse, and a level of disclosure and state control that makes many people feel uncomfortable due to the massive expansion of state power it requires.
I don't know why people are so stubborn about this. Next up, they will argue that because people accepted a higher sales tax, they will accept a higher wealth tax, too. After all, you let the state mandate childhood vaccines, so you should be OK with the state mandating your diet, right? Anyways, we'll see how things work in out in California. The state already has massive deficit problems, so let's see how this addresses their fiscal problems.